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“Think about the children!” says Alabama Public Television
But are you really thinking about the children…or the harmful biases that their parents hold?
A famous children’s show aired an episode about some schoolchildren trying to foil a wedding thinking their teacher is going to marry someone mean, but the teacher actually ends up marrying a nice chocolatier and the “mean” person just ends up being this teacher’s perfectionistic older sister. Alabama public television refused to air this episode claiming that the episode would be inappropriate for young children or clash with certain parents’ beliefs. One might exactly wonder why this episode was banned in Alabama. What’s wrong with making sure your family members don’t settle for less than the best or marrying a chocolatier? Surely that wouldn’t cause any outrage…at least, not any more outrage than finding a misplaced comma in a third grader’s homework.
In the Arthur episode, “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone”, the tough but caring teacher we all needed in our lives ended up marrying another man. For Alabama Public Television, this was enough of a reason to not air the episode. They claimed showing the episode would “violate the trust” of parents, but why would parents feel the need to trust public television to not let children see a rather innocent gay…
